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Artscope Magazine | November/December 2022

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Exhibits

WOMEN CAN HAVE IT ALL — A CELEBRATION THROUGH THE ART OF Zeynab Movahed AT High Line Nine Gallery

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

Running from April 5 through 18, Roya Khadjavi Projects brings Iranian woman artist Zeynab Movahed to High Line Nine Gallery 9.1 in New York City. Movahed’s work celebrates women’s freedom in moving about her day, including social and family commitments in the Tehran metropolis of her residency by women clearly in control of their present and future.

Reflecting the unstable societal situation present in Iran and worldwide, the artist takes us on a Joycian tour of places where women socialize in Iran. Realizing that a reflection can be a memory of the past or an immediate vision of the present, that cellphone reflection becomes a past vision as soon as it is recorded or sent, with the present taking over immediately afterwards. The paintings show the artist’s reflection in her cellphone image and society’s reflection of her.

By painting women together and alone in cafes, Movahed cracks the glass to reveal women freely associating in cafes, amid burgeoning foliage, unafraid and undeniably visible. The women are careful to mask, protecting their health during covid, but rarely veil to satisfy religious demands. They hold their cellphones in front of them, surveilling, but only allowing those to whom they speak and show their face to see them. We become those chosen to see their painted thoughts, dreams and reality. Unlike the story of Anarkali in Lahore, women are no longer immured if seen enjoying themselves, but here are seen taking full part in society and by themselves.

Clearly, the paintings challenge what is seen; the woman in the car, seat belt unbuckled, water bottle next to her, out for a joy ride or voyage alone, or the woman, hair askew, unveiled, sitting unaccompanied at a café counter, tapping away at her phone, communicating with someone on the other end of the phone, or the lone unveiled women, partaking of fruit displayed for only her on a brick patio.

The work is the essence of the independent woman, challenging Iranian stereotypes. The only paintings in the show not of sole women include two women, talking together in sisterhood amidst ancient, monumental buildings; two women clearly at home behind trees growing large and strong, with bookcases filled with models of modern houses, perhaps to be lived in without companions, and one of children in a car, honoring the mother’s commitment to carpooling the children amidst the social and professional lives they lead.

We are observing the full lives of women during the pandemic, carpooling, socializing, carrying on normal domestic duties of washing dishes, working professionally and reflecting on all that is and will be.

(“Zeynab Movahed: Unstable Conditions” runs from April 5 through April 18 at High Line Nine Gallery 9.1, 507 West 27th St., New York, N.Y.; the show’s opening reception will be held on Tuesday, April 5, from 4-8 p.m. The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from noon-6 p.m. For more information, visit https://highlinenine.org).

MARIANO IN HIS MANY, MANY GUISES AT BC’S MCMULLEN GALLERY

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by James Foritano

What would you do if you were headed up from Cambridge across the Charles River to Boston College’s McMullen Art Gallery just outside the main campus on Commonwealth Ave — #2101 to be exact — looking for a little color to brighten up the gloom of an early fall New England morning?

I had promised our two art lovers in the back seat a short, scenic drive plus a destination with bongo drums and banana plants enriched by the bodacious senoritas and testosterone-fueled senors to be met with on every yard of Cuba’s balmy shores. And without the bother of international flight!

Ah, but, as usual we had reckoned without the artist, and what academics call, if you will, ‘inspiration!’

We arrived at Boston College’s McMullen Museum of Art to view “Mariano: Variations on a Theme | Variaciones sobre un tema,” a retrospective exhibition of 140 oil paintings, watercolors, and drawings that remains on view through December 5.

Who was Mariano, anyway? And why couldn’t he have stayed in Cuba — where he was well-liked, it seems, or, at least, not in jail.

I think he was a guy without an anchor. Everybody who was anybody of his generation, 1912-1990, was going to Mexico, palettes in hand, to expand their painterly horizons and/or bed exotic women.

So, what did Mariano do in the restless decade of his twenties but go too. Perhaps that’s where he lost his last name? In flight from an irate papa? Tellingly his bio doesn’t say.

Furthermore, my friends were nowhere to be found, so I had to conclude that they also had no anchors — and in revenge I too lost myself in the men and women of Cuba’s fertile territories.

It seems that Mariano (Rodriguez) had to go away in order to come back with fresh eyes. The fact is that Mariano, whatever other hanky-panky he indulged in — again his bio is tellingly mum — actually did come back with new eyes. And what rare, new eyes!

His men and women in the outdoors are dripping with earth — even without the accoutrements of hoes and rakes!

You just know that after their dalliance with each other, or with just themselves and that deep earth in a rare moment of solitude, they will grab their rakes and/or hoes and wield them as though born with the tools.

Besides saving paint, avoiding clutter, and saving time for more dalliance, the good eye of the artist allows your eye do the work of guessing the inessentials.

Oh, there are necessary clues, such as line and color and volume and void all leading the unwary viewer with time on her hands to make the same good guesses that your average connoisseur with make in minutes — with time for hanky-panky!

And speaking about time, where the heck (!) were my so-called friends! Ah, yes  — collecting clues!

After spilling iconic clues of a people close to the earth, close even in dark interiors where lush fruits are heaped up as much for the eye as for the appetite, and barnyard animals are at home everywhere, Mariano paints intriguing portraits whose only clues to character are in the slightest attitude of the body or fleeting lights in the eye.

That’s where I found my wife, Madeleine, picking her favorite portrait of a little girl, “Lolita,” both proudly aware of her destiny, but also open to guidance.

Perhaps your guidance? As you turn and return to glean from her painted figure everything possible to know about a growing body at rest, at peace, yet conscious of being watched, while alertly watching you  — and her world.

Mariano, the ideal tourist, trying on styles from his volatile era in both North and South America, Europe, and then, later in life, as Charge D’Affaires for the Cuban government in India, and back to a post-revolutionary, highly politicized Cuba, wearing these different styles into every gallery of his retrospective, but only after infinite adjustments made them a glove-tight fit for his every agile move.

Another friend was absorbing explosions of abstract expressionism; yet another parsing the delicate lines of a geometric abstraction of a boat at sea limned with a sureness that asserted this a craft worthy, with skilled hands, to return to its island port, daily, with a briny living.

These 140-plus scintillating paintings are, ostensibly, as simple as their spare titles, though with so many pathways, byways, to appreciation for the eye and mind; and the weather between their gorgeous frames is as variable as New England’s: pull on your boots for the muck of the barnyard, don your most elegantly frilled shirt, with open collar, for the hothouse of romance, buckle on your slicker and work gloves for night fishing in morning fog.

Out of breath with telling each of our own discoveries, we returned to Cambridge with a fuller awareness of what just looking around with intent can do for a painting life. Mariano might have found time to be a rascal too  — but only after hours. After arriving with my usual protective flippancy I’m in awe what he did with his time and talent.

And if Mariano would like to let on about the rest of his escapades, I’m listening!

(“Mariano: Variations on a Theme | Variaciones sobre un tema” remains on view through December 5 at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College, 2101 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, Massachusetts. Museum hours are Monday through Friday from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from noon-5 p.m. The museum will be closed on October 11 and November 25 and 26. For more information, call (617) 552-8587 or visit https://www.bc.edu/sites/artmuseum/.)

SURvIVING THE LONELINESS OF COVID: LIZ SHEPHERD’S POWERFUL UNGATHERED AT BOSTON SCULPTORS GALLERY

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Beth Neville

Rare is the contemporary artist who can make the “personal” universal. Liz Shepherd is one of these special artists. She experienced agonies with Covid-19: her contraction of the virus, loss of creative time, total isolation and a non-Thanksgiving. Her brush with death, loneliness and confusion is translated into a positive vision at the Boston Sculptors Gallery, one all viewers may relate to.

Shepherd is an artist who has spent decades exploring many media, and is in total control of her craft. She confidently mixes soft-media papier-mâché with the unyielding hardness of welded steel. A lost Thanksgiving meal is her symbol for the devastation wrought by the virus. Three empty black-wire chairs surround a non-existent table. An exquisitely crafted paper pitcher, a serving bowl and ladle float in the air, Empty placemats hang nearby.

On a wall close-by, 16 colorful silk-screened, two-dimensional sofas and chairs appear to emerge from the flat surface. Waiting for people to plunk down and “watch the game.” But where are the guests? Family, friends and cooing babies? Not here. Covid-caused loneliness is everywhere in this constellation of loving domestic symbols.

(“Liz Shepherd: Ungathered” remains on view (along with “Ed Andrews: Transplant” through October 31 at Boston Sculptors Gallery, 486 Harrison Ave., Boston, Massachusetts. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Sunday from noon-5 p.m. and by appointment. An artists’ reception will take place on Saturday, October 16 from 4-6 p.m. For more information, call (617) 482-7781 or visit bostonsculptors.com.)

WORKING IN A MULTITUDE OF MEDIUMS, SOWA ARTIST STEVEN LUSH REFLECTS HIS INFLUENCES

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Jack Lynch

Artist Steven Lush, who operates out of Studio #220 in the SoWa Artists Guild Building at 450 Harrison Avenue in Boston’s South End, has led an extraordinary career. His work reflects the extraordinary life and approach towards life as an artist that he took.

Born to an artistic family, Lush’s mother was a major influence on his decision to go into art. She was an artist herself as well as a musician. She taught him how to draw and paint when he was five years old, which led to him developing an interest in drawing and ultimately becoming a self-taught artist.

Despite his interest in drawing early on in his life, for a period of 15 years, Lush’s work was primarily done in the medium of watercolor on paper. His inspiration to use this medium came from looking at the watercolor work of Winslow Homer in a magazine that his mother owned when he was growing up.

Other artists are not the only influence on Lush’s artwork. He has also traveled extensively to different parts of the world, including India and the Mediterranean countries, which has had a lasting impact on his art, especially in his figurative work. His fascination with watercolor was also based on his interest in how light affects the areas that it encompasses. It is based on his personal belief that “strong contrast in any artwork for me is the most important thing.”

Watercolors were also mainly used in his series of marine art. Lush’s interest in marine art was influenced by his time as a merchant engineer for the company “American Export Lines.” While did not go to art school — he went to the Maritime Academy, during his time on board ships, Lush almost always drew and painted. His familiarity with ships has allowed him to create pieces such as the watercolor on paper piece “The Twins,” which depicts their elaborate structures. Despite the elaborate structures that are depicted in his marine artwork, Lush uses loose fluid colors to form these images. That is the strongpoint that Lush would say makes his marine artwork stand out. However, a lot can be said about Lush’s artwork in general.

In general, Lush has said that he would characterize his artwork as including strong saturated colors. This aspect ranges towards his work in a multitude of mediums. Despite the large period in his career where he mainly used watercolor on paper as his main medium, Lush has transitioned to multiple other mediums.

These include oil on canvas and collage work. He has developed an interest in expanding into metal sculpture welding and is looking to get a workshop to do this kind of art. He has also developed an interest in wood sculpture and contemporary sculpture.

Another one of Lush’s early influences was Saul Steinberg, a cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine whose work he was fascinated with growing up. This interest led to him developing an interest in drawing in pen and ink.

“I kind of get into this mode world where I’ll do a series of work, so I’ve done a series of cartoons within the last couple years, I’ve done a series of masks, I’ve done a series of wood sculptures, always doing series of watercolor,” said Lush, explaining how he finds himself working in multiple mediums.

“I don’t do the same thing all the time, but I do series. I work in a series. I kind of get it out of my system. I’ll go into something else that I either have done before or something new and then I’ll return to something I may have done years ago.”

Therefore, Steven Lush’s career in art shows the multiple inspirations he has had over his life and his free attitude towards art.

Steven Lush has always been interested in creating art within a multitude of mediums, working in whichever style or medium he has developed an interest in at the time. His career in art shows the multiple inspirations that he has had over his life and his free attitude towards art — one worth keeping an eye on.

(For more information on Steve Lush, visit stevelush.com or visit him during SoWaBoston First Fridays at 450 Harrison Ave. Studio #220, Boston, Massachusetts.)

SLOW AND STEADY AT VOLTA AS ARTISTS SHARE THEIR VISIONS OF A BETTER AND BRIGHTER WORLD

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Nancy Nesvet

With 69 galleries representing five continents, 50 cities and 40 nations, VOLTA Basel 2021 is showing beautiful work. Evoking nature in several exhibitions, it satisfies my and probably your craving for natural beauty amid the emptiness and depressing devastation of cities during Covid. At Charlie Smith, London, artist Dominic Shepherd paintings are inspired by fairy tales, including “Hedge Witch-2021” and “The King is Dead, Long Live the King 2.” As we have all learned, fairy tales can be both delightful and frightening and Shepherd’s paintings attest to that duality.

Iranian artists at three galleries new to VOLTA this year, Bavon Gallery, Mohlsen Gallery and Saradipour Gallery (SARAI), repeat the natural beauty motif. At Saradipour Art (SARAI), Mahdieh Abolhasen’s layers of land and history interacting in her grey, drawings encourage a slow, contemplative connection with nature.

In another evocation of graceful lines, Souun Takeda of Japan calligraphs text with a giant brush in a demonstration of the Zen aspects of Japanese calligraphy juxtaposed with Kohi Kyamori’s interpretation of ornamentation in Asian sculpture, building a visual language, at Selene Art Media, Japan.

The flip side of exhibiting the natural beauty we all crave is the new technology that we have all learned to use or at least, look at. Bringing the latest technology to art at VOLTA, Fumiano Clase, (London)and MeetFrida Art (Hamburg) are showing NFT (non-fungible token) art as well as Ju Schnee’s transfer of digital images to concrete images and concrete to digital image. Roxanne Sauriol, also at MeetFrida Art, paints hyper-realistic portraits of women posed with technology including cameras and cellphones, doubling the image in a doppelganger way and asking, with digital images extant, which is the real thing?

At Mark Hachem, Michelangelo Bastiani plays on depth and volume, focusing on water in the most beautiful paintings while Carlos Cruz Diez’s installation of light in many colors continues the experiments in perception, again lighting up our world, rescuing from the darkness of the past year.

As we continue to consider those who have been left out of the art establishment or struggled for their place in it, women artists’ work is featured at AEDAEN Gallery (Strasbourg, France) especially showing the work of Theresa Moller.

Truly, VOLTA has outdone itself, with relevant art produced in new, creative ways. It was a joy to see online, probably even better in person. This year, I go to VOLTA to escape the real world, whether in the fairy-tale inspired paintings of Dominic Shepherd or the bright undulating colors of Carlos Cruz Diez, or so many other nature-inspired works of true beauty, and I thank all the artists for their visions of a better and brighter world.

(VOLTA Basel 2021 takes place September 20 through 26 at Elsässerstrasse 215, Basel, Switzerland. For more information, visit VOLTAartfairs.com.)

A SENSE OF PLACE: NASHOBA VALLEY ARTISTS & HISTORICAL LEGACY CELEBRATED IN GROTON

// Artscope Online, Exhibits, Visual Arts

by Joni Parker-Roach

There are certain locations around the world that have always attracted artists, and Groton, in the heart of Massachusetts’ Nashoba Valley, is one. The former home of Edmund Tarbell of the Boston School, who fell in love with the landscape; Mary Minifie, who follows in his footsteps; and Paul Matisse, whose Kalliroscope Gallery, in a repurposed old church, is a focal point of Groton’s local art and music scene.

The work of these three and more than 20 other area artists will be on display through October 31 in “Sense of Place,” with a celebratory reception at The Groton Inn this Sunday, September 26, from 2-5 p.m. The Inn is also home to two J. D. Poor murals and a working gallery, the NOA Gallery at The Groton Inn, featuring 60 rotating works by New England artists.

The exhibit was the idea of Bobbie Spiegelman, former President of the Groton History Center, whose goal was “to find the connections between history, place, and art and to capture the talents in our community in the 2020s. The artists — painters, sculptors, woodworkers, poets, photographers — are each creating an original piece that conveys their vision of this environment—natural, cultural, spiritual.” With COVID, the focus for some artists has taken on the overlay of this period in time and their personal pandemic journeys.

The works will be on display at two walkable locations on Main Street: The Groton History Center and The Groton Inn. The exhibit is free and will run during the months of September and October, and an artist reception will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. on Sunday, September 26. A coffee table book featuring the works on display and stories of the artists’ inspirations will also be for sale and launched at the reception.

The show’s participating artists include Katharine Bell, Peter Benedict, Carol Canner, Ray Clemny, Charles Faucher, Joelle Feldman, Elizabeth Goldring, Linda Hoffman, Kathryn Liebowitz, Ariel Matisse, Paul Matisse, Mary Minifie, John Mitchell, Joni Parker-Roach, Otto Piene, Sally Reed, Harvey Sargisson, Danny Schwartz, Barbara Scofidio, Laurie Smigelski, Edmund Tarbell, Alexia Rosoff Wilber, Scott Wilson, Sharon Wooding and Pamela Worden.

The Groton Inn, the centerpiece of this charming, historic New England town, is offering exhibit-goers the chance to turn the Sense of Place experience into a weekend getaway with a special rate on September 25 and 26. Space is limited.

(“Sense of Place: Reflections on Our Time and Place by 25 Nashoba Valley Artists” continues through October 31 are various locations in and near Groton, Massachusetts, including the Groton Inn, 128 Main St., daily from 9 a.m.-9 p.m.; and the Boutwell House, 172 Main St., where the gallery is open Saturday through Monday from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Ray Ciemny’s sculpture is on display at the Groton Public Library, 99 Main Street. The library is open Tuesday through Saturday, hours vary. Paul Matisse’s “Olympic Bell” is on display at Old Frog Pond Farm, 38 Eldridge Road, Harvard, Massachusetts; hours are Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. For more information, visit grotonhistory.org or call (978) 772-1286.)